What makes us beautiful
My all-time favorite novel is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s not the bolt-necked, lumbering image from Hollywood; it’s a harrowing tale about the results of one human’s experimentation. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant student, believes that his studies have unlocked the very secret to life. His colleagues try to talk him out of it, but Victor is dead-set on creating the perfect human. He believes that his work will yield the first truly perfect person, and so he gathers “materials” of what he considers to be the best human features—silky hair, muscular appendages, straight teeth—and cobbles them together to make his creature. However, his result is not beautiful but horrifying. No one can stand to look upon the creature, not even his creator. Victor calls his creation a “wretch.”
